MASTERS AT WORK
ONE HALF OF ONE OF HOUSE MUSIC’S MOST RECOGNISABLE DUOS, KENNY DOPE IS STAYING TRUE TO HIS PRINCIPLES
When Kenny Dope talks he commands your respect. Deep, dulcet New York tones, spoken authoritatively at a languid pace. If he didn’t also happen to one-half of New York’s most legendary house music double act, you’d still probably be enamoured by his style.
Masters At Work re-wrote the house music rulebook in the 90s with a firm commitment to pushing their own heritage, but also the cultural heritage of their aforementioned cosmopolitan capital to the forefront of their output. Going by their full names “Little” Louie Vega and Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez, their success was forged in part by combining disparate yet connected strains of Latin American and black music into a New York house music world that was, in the early-to-mid 90s, utterly thriving.
The names from that scene act like a roll call of DJ superstardom. Roger Sanchez, Erick Morillo, Todd Terry, David Morales, Joey Negro, Francois K, Danny Krivit and Frankie Knuckles were forging a scene big enough to rival Detroit’s techno explosion. Masters At Work were a critical and essential part of this scene. Like the odd couple, Vega and Dope were distinctive not just musically, but also in the physical juxtaposition between them. Dope, thick-set with his deep voice and hip-hop dress style (complete with graphical trademark flat-peak cap) and Vega, slight, high-pitched, snappily dressed and never without a trilby hat.
MAW’s prodigious production output comprised a string of classic house tracks that traversed the Atlantic with ease. Having garnered a reputation for strong remix work, their reputation soared, eventually re- working the likes of Michael Jackson and Madonna. Vega was adamant that “everyone wanted one”.
Their stripped back, dubby style of production incorporated elements of jazz, funk, soul, hip-hop and Latin influences in a strictly house music setting. Distinctive instrumentation was a strong identifier of much of their work, especially on their Gilles Peterson lauded live act Nuyorican Soul (a name combining New York and their Puerto Rican roots). It was this project that brought them much in the way of critical recognition, the double disc album presented in the style of a Cuban cigar packet and the music offering pinpoint references to their jazzier and old school roots. It also featured the likes of George Benson and Roy Ayers.
But back in the house, their consistent production output and Dope’s commitment to record collecting (he owns over 50,000 records) have meant they’ve always been able to present their vision of house music in its most complete form. Our time with Dope yielded distinct opinions on the future of dance music , all delivered in a trademark style that we like to call ‘cool as fuck’.
You guys don’t play as many gigs as you once did. What tempted you back?
Well it’s been quite a number of years. It felt right.
Has the blueprint changed at all over the years?
Well y’know, I’m the same person. I like the gritty stuff. I like the beats upfront. I love the soulful stuff as well as the electronic stuff, together. It’s crazy because we don’t talk about the sets. We just get there and play. (Louie) brings what he’s playing at the moment and I bring what I’m playing and together we just feed off each other, there’s a live aspect of it that’s freestyle. Whatever the crowd is feeling.
How is your relationship with Louie these days? Do you guys still hang out, or do you guys only come together when it’s Masters At Work time?
We’re a lot older now and everyone has families and I have a lot more on my plate than I did when I was 19 years old. We talk, but it’s not like we hang out every day because Louie’s got a family and he’s got children. The best thing about it is when we do get together in the studio or do a gig, it’s like we’ve never been apart. It’s like we’ve been talking every day. It’s something that I really can’t explain but it’s something that has to happen naturally, it’s not forced.
How do you feel about the current state of music in the US, and especially New York? Did you always feel New York was a bit of a standalone state in the US when it came to musical creation?
It varies, but I think the biggest thing in the past with New York was all the different types of people, it was and still is a melting point of a lot of people in one place, so you do get all these different kinds of sounds. That was back in the day though and today, in a way, I think New York has kind of lost its identity, depending on what genre you are speaking about. So, for example, all the rappers and that whole sound from the South who are doing their thing, you’ve got young guys in New York trying to replicate that sound. Then you’ve got the whole EDM thing, which isn’t really like anything we’ve been used to in the States. We’ve always been able to do that big stage thing, but DJs these days are putting their hands in the air and it’s less about the music and more about the performance. That’s not what we’ve ever been about.
That 90s era of superstar New York house DJs such as yourselves, Roger Sanchez and Joey Negro was a unique period in US house music history. Surely we’ll never see that many DJs come through in one go ever again?
Absolutely. It was a golden era not just for us but for a lot of other people too. The landscape is different now though; New York needs to find its own place again. A good example is this rise of disco at the moment with that Pharrell and Daft Punk track.
I’ve listened to interviews with you where you’ve expressed concerns about DJs getting into bad habits with new equipment. Do you think the kids are learning bad habits as far as the music is presented?
Yeah, I think so. I’m not gonna diss all the technology, but I think when it comes to DJing there’s a certain way it needs to be presented and there are people getting up there with an iPad and have everything pre-mixed. That’s not DJing. That’s not going out there and filling the floor, because that set you created might not necessarily work for that crowd that day. That to me isn’t what a DJ is. A DJ is there to play music, to show your style, bring ‘em in, bring ‘em out and there’s a lot of guys doing stuff that is mixed already and that’s not cool because they’re getting paid a lot of money and they’re not doing anything. That’s also not fair on the kids because they aren’t getting the experience of what a real DJ does. It shows laziness. However, I’ve seen a lot kids embrace the technology and become really innovative. There are two sides to that. But we are living in a digital age right now and it’s up to the individual to get deep into your mind and use the technology the best with what he has available to him. Just don’t take the easy route.
You’ve had quite a good education in terms of the Latin music and soul music you grew up around and your firm commitment to vinyl. Do you think house music has become too generic and lacks influence from the outside?
Absolutely. We took from a lot of different places and incorporated them because we wanted our listeners to know there is a thing called jazz-funk and there is a thing called disco. We got to the point where we ended up adding a bassist or a pianist or a percussionist and we kept adding little by little to the music and that’s how we ended up with Nuyorican Soul, which was one big orchestrated project because we wanted to bring those sounds to the dance floor. Obviously the genres we were incorporating had brought these live elements before, but on a house level it had never been done to that extent. When it comes to bringing in genres we mastered that, because we brought so many different elements into our music. After we did that run for 10 years there wasn’t really anyone who took it on to the next level. Everyone just went back to the minimal stuff, which is cool, but at the same time people want to hear music again today. That’s what I meant when I spoke earlier about that Daft Punk thing. We’re all a lot older now, we got more experience, but the younger generation needs to step up and keep that going and use the technology to take it a step further. I’m not totally against all of it, just don’t get up there and wave your hands in the air. That’s not what’s supposed to be happening.
Is Kay Dee Records an outlet to release music you’ve found over the years?
It’s actually the label’s 20th anniversary this year. It was pretty much built and put together to release obscure recordings. It was one of those things where you discovered some music and you’re like ‘I want more people to hear this.’ But the act of releasing it is a mission in itself, because you’ve got to track down the artists and the producers and once you find them you’ve got to hope they have masters and tapes because once you find those masters, you gotta work with them. But then we started putting out newer stuff like Rickey Calloway, The Fantastic Souls – that’s my band that has a new album coming out at the end of the year. I’m mixing it right now. It goes both ways, we put out the old stuff and the new stuff, but it’s got to have that 60s/70s feel.
Tell me about your record collection? Is it true you own 50,000 records.
It’s got to be more now as that was six or seven years ago. Think of it like this, if you’re in class and you’re going to college or whatever, this is my library and my school. Sometimes when I wanna listen to records, I duck in there for inspiration. You know when I’m having a bad day, I go in there and I dig deep. I still dig in record stores; I still love going to flea markets and going to warehouses, because you always find something else.
Have you accumulated all these records in New York?
This is something I been putting together for years y’know. When I was travelling around the world and, say, landing in England, my itinerary would mean the driver knew he would drop me off at my hotel and then we’d go to some spots. And that was in every country, so I’ve got German records, I’ve got stuff from Paris, Italy, it’s just crazy. It’s my place to teach myself about music.
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Words: Thomas Frost
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